IBM’s Global Technology Services head says growth will absorb employees whose jobs are automated

IBM’s $35 billion IT infrastructure unit has been bringing in automation for years and believes that its strong growth will help it absorb all the employees whose jobs have been automated, the global head of that business told ET.

The technology giant’s Global Technology Services unit is the largest provider of IT infrastructure offering and, last week, IBM bought out Indian provider Sanovi Technologies to expand disaster recovery services for the hybrid cloud.

Automation has been a crucial part of how Indian IT companies are looking at boosting their prospects in the fiercely competitive infrastructure services space. Companies like Infosys and Wipro have been declaring the number of people who have been redeployed to other projects as their current jobs have been automated.

But IBM does not look at automation the same way. We’ve been using automation for years. And we do not see it as the number of jobs that can be automated but in terms of the benefit that the customer sees and the improvement in delivery, Martin Jetter, senior vice president of IBM’s Global Technology Services, told ET.

Jetter also batted away concerns that accelerating automation could mean that existing employees could struggle to the redeployed.

The best answer to that is success. We have been winning large deals and we are growing. Though we are a leader in the IT infrastructure services business, we are looking to win more market share. As long as we keep growing, we can deploy these people, Jetter said.

He also pointed out that IBM has also not yet felt the impact of Brexit and views it, instead, as an opportunity. Indian IT companies from Tata Consultancy Services, Infosys and Wipro to even smaller players like Mindtree have said that they are seeing their clients become cautious in the wake Britain’s vote to exit the European Union.

Jetter said the company was also increasing the amount of work that was being delivered out of India, adding that global marketing and offering management would begin to be co-located out of the country.

SOURCE: PTI